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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Live
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Live refers to a live-stage show that ran around 1994-1995. It also refers to the video filmed of the show and released on VHS as well as on various DVD releases of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as a bonus feature Summary As the stage show begins, Zordon and Alpha 5 are working on a routine scan of Earth when they’re alerted to a large teleportation anomaly created by Lord Zedd. As their signal is suddenly shut off, a newscaster alerts the audience that a huge UFO is about to crash-land near Angel Grove. The UFO, disguised as a meteor, is revealed to be piloted by two aliens who wish to learn the evil ways of Lord Zedd. They find themselves knocking on the large doors of a dark cave, which Lord Zedd has made his base of operations while on Earth. After revealing his plan to his underlings—Goldar, Rita Repulsa, Squatt, and Baboo—he orders his Putties to invade the city in an attempt to lure the Power Rangers out into the open, so that he can capture them and weaken their strength two by two. In the Command Center, Alpha 5 and Zordon discover that Lord Zedd himself may have landed on Earth but not in Angel Grove. Alpha 5 discovers that the communications have been jammed. Zordon enters the Morphing Grid to attempt to overcome the jam to alert the Power Rangers while Alpha is sent to the coordinates where the UFO had landed. He is ambushed by Putties in the park. With help from the audience, Alpha is able to alert the Power Rangers, who morph and teleport to Alpha's location, driving off the Putties to protect their friend. Zordon contacts them and explains that Lord Zedd is indeed in the area where the Rangers have transported themselves. The Rangerss teleport out and begin their search for Zedd’s temporary base on Earth. At his cave (after the Putties go into the audience and interacts with them), Zedd praises the Putties (to Goldar, Squatt, and Baboo’s surprise) for luring his enemies out into the open. He uses his staff to produce a fire monster named Lumitor, who can scorch his enemies just by coming in contact with them. Zedd sends Lumitor, Goldar, and more of his Putties to begin another assault on the city, which lures the Rangers into battle. During the fight, the monsters manage to kidnap Adam and Aisha. Once back at Zedd’s cave, Adam and Aisha attempt to escape, but their exit is blocked by the two UFO aliens. To make matters worse, the two Rangers cannot teleport out while inside Zedd’s cave and they are soon imprisoned in cages. Meanwhile at the entrance, Kimberly, Rocky, Tommy, and Billy are trying to gain access inside the cave. Due to the communications being jammed to prevent Zordon warning the Rangers, Alpha teleports to warn them to prevent the Rangers from being captured themselves. Under Zordon's orders, the Rangers regroup at the park to await instructions from him, with Alpha leading the audience in a cheer for the Power Rangers. Inside the cave, Zedd is having fun the only way he knows how—by tormenting the Rangers he has imprisoned. He transfroms them into monkeys before ultimately transforming them into cockatoos. However, the other four Rangers are informed of this and are also instructed to lure Lumitor away from Zedd’s magical protection and destroyed. Billy suggests using the Firebird Thunderzord as a cloud seeder, and the Rangers take the Thunder Megazord and White Tigerzord into the city, where they encounter a giant Lumitor and battle him to a virtual standstill. After the Thunderzords change battle modes later on, the Mega Tigerzord launches the Firebird Thunderzord off its right arm, seeding the clouds. With the audience chanting for rain, the plan is successful and Lumitor is destoryed. Meanwhile, in the park, Goldar, Squatt, and Baboo are preparing their trap to capture the other four Rangers. They create a monster they call "Hollow Monster", who cannot be destroyed except by loud sounds. Adam and Aisha hear this and, knowing cockatoos can speak a word or two of human, work to say the words “hollow” and “sound”. The plan works as the other Rangers, arriving and facing Hollow Monster, realize their two comrades are trying to say something. With Saba getting all the information and the audience’s help once again, Hollow Monster fall apart—literally. Adam and Aisha are taken by the villains, but Squatt is left behind and discovered by the Rangers. Squatt is made to take the Rangers to Zedd’s cave and, with some trash-talk by Saba, Squatt is tricked into opening the main entrance for the Rangers—or so they think. Soon, the Rangers are ambushed by Zedd’s army. Zedd then appears, giant sized, and dares the Rangers to beat him while cut off from Zordon and their Zords. Billy encourages the audience to reflect Zedd’s magic back at him with special reflectors. With the audience’s help, Zedd is weakened enough for the Rangers to strike the final blow. Zedd’s hold on the cave is broken and Adam and Aisha are restored to normal. With that, the Rangers defeat the Putties and the UFO aliens. The rest of the Rangers' enemies retreat, with Zedd vowing to one day defeat the Rangers. Zordon praises the Rangers for once again doing the impossible. Their victory is short lived, however, as Alpha 5 alerts the Rangers to another attack in Angel Grove. After a short goodbye to all their fans in the audience, the Rangers teleport to Angel Grove and another adventure. Characters Power Rangers *Tommy Oliver - White Ranger *Rocky DeSantos - Red Ranger *Adam Park - Black Ranger *Billy Cranston - Blue Ranger *Aisha Campbell - Yellow Ranger *Kimberly Hart - Pink Ranger Allies *Zordon *Alpha 5 Zords *Thunderzords **Tigerzord / Mega Tigerzord **Thunder Megazord ***Red Dragon Thunderzord ***Lion Thunderzord ***Unicorn Thunderzord ***Griffin Thunderzord ***Firebird Thunderzord Villains *Lord Zedd *Rita Repulsa *Goldar *Squatt & Baboo *Z Putty Patrollers *Two extraterrestrials *Lumitor *Hollow Monster * Characters who appeared both on stage and in the video parts: the morphed Rangers, Alpha 5, Lord Zedd, Goldar, and Rita. * Characters who only appeared in the video: the unmorphed Rangers, Zordon, and the Zords. * Characters who only appeared on stage, but did come from the TV show: Baboo, Squatt, and the Putties. * Characters who only appeared in the stage show: the meteorite aliens, the cockatoo Rangers (both on stage and the video), the anchorman (only in the video), Lumintor, and the Hollow Monster. Cast *For all the characters in the show who originally appeared in the TV series, their original actors reprised their roles and recorded the soundtrack that the suited stage actors performed to (ie. Jason David Frank voiced Tommy). *There is no documentation of who played the new characters introduced in this stage show (Lumitor, the meteorite aliens, and the anchorman), nor is there known documentation of who the suit actors on stage were. **For the video sequences, apart from the obvious (the unmorphed Rangers), whoever were suit actors on the TV show at the time were likely the ones who played the roles in new footage of the Red, Blue, Pink, and White Rangers as well as of Goldar and Lord Zedd (along with stock footage of Alpha, Zordon, the Zords, and some incidental footage of the Rangers originally shot for the TV series or from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger and Gosei Sentai Dairanger). Songs *Fight *I Will Win Notes *A fair amount of footage from the TV show, plus footage shot especially for the stage show, was used in conjunction with the live stage actors. *New costumes were made for the stage show. It's easy to tell as all the characters look different from their TV appearances except for the Rangers (missing Blade Blaster holders and Saba notwithstanding). This is more noticeable for the characters who appeared both on stage and in the video sequences, which used the TV costumes. ** Viewing the relatively high resolution copy of the video on Shout! Factory's complete MMPR series DVD set, a viewer can see that mesh is used in place of the Rangers' visors and mouth areas. In some shots (especially close-ups of the Pink Ranger), the suit actor's eyes are visible. The mesh is likely a concession, as the suit actors on stage have to keep their helmets on for an extended amount of time compared to the suit actors on the TV show (who have the benefit of removing them when the camera isn't running and they're setting up a new shot). *It's clear the stage show does not fit into the continuity of the TV show, mainly because Lord Zedd and Rita don't act like the married couple that they are portrayed as in the second half of the 2nd season of the TV show and beyond. Their relationship in the stage show is akin to the leader and underling dynamic as seen "The Mutiny". However, there are many reasons why the stage show can't take place inbetween scenes of "The Mutiny": ** Rita was sent away in a dumpster early into "The Mutiny", with no time or indication that more happened before her disappearance. ** Pirantishead wasn't mentioned in the stage show, nor was Lumintor mentioned in "The Mutiny" ** More importantly, Jason, Trini, and Zack were still Rangers in "The Mutiny" rather than Rocky, Aisha, and Adam. ***When Alpha calls out for the Rangers during his putty fight, he only mentioned Tommy, Kimberly, and Billy by name and not Aisha, Adam, or Rocky. This could be (ie: not positive) a sign that Jason, Zack, and Trini were supposed to be a part of the stage show (this may also be the case for Alpha's Magical Christmas and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie). *Characters like Bulk, Skull, Ernie, Ms. Appleby, and Mr. Caplan do not appear, due to the show's nature as a stunt show and the difficulty of including recast human characters (as opposed to Rangers and monsters, who wear identity concealing masks). To likely focus on the fights, they are even absent from the video sequences. *Judging from the logo on the actual video, 7-Up sponsored the stage show. *Alpha stunning a group of Putties that are about to attack him is similar to an incident in "Power Ranger Punks". Errors *There are several instances of errors in the video sequences due to editing bits of separate episodes together: ** Alpha, redesigned during the first season, switches between the two designs. The change is sometimes in the span of just a cut. ** In one shot at the beginning, a Ranger's shoulder (Zack's) appears right behind Alpha, despite Alpha not even being able to contact the Rangers at that point. ** Because no Thunder Megazord cockpit shots without the Black and Yellow Rangers existed, the makers of the video used shots of the remaining Rangers in their Dinozord cockpits. *** This is technically not an error as the Tigerzord's solo cockpit was the only one shown of Thunderzords; it just merited a mention as while the solo Thunderzord cockpits could've looked like the solo Dinozord cockpits, the stage show producers were likely just concerned with shooting as little new footage as possible. * During the Rangers' exchange with Zordon after the first fight with the Putties, the actor playing Tommy/the White Ranger reacts as the audio plays "What is he (Zedd) up to this time?" The problem is that the voice belongs to Rocky/the Red Ranger. Whether this was a quirk of the video or a mistake in the actual show is unknown. * There are several instances where the video shows one action and is shown again in a different shot (possibly to cut any lulls that are to be expected at a live stage performance but would be tedious to watch on video) * The various instances of stage crew and cameramen visible during the show SHOULD NOT be considered errors, simply due to the nature of being a filmed stage performance and likely no time to film alternate shots without these people. Releases *In the United Kingdom, the recording of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Live was broadcast on Sky One on Easter Monday (April 8th) of 1996 at 7:00AM BST. *The recording was presented as a bonus features on the German release of the second season Mighty Morphin Power Rangers DVD set. *The video was made a bonus feature on every complete series release of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Shout! Factory. See Also *Alpha's Magical Christmas *Lord Zedd's Monster Heads *The Good, the Bad, and the Stupid *Zeo Serial *Power Rangers Funniest Moments *The Lost Episode Category:Mighty Morphin Category:Special Category:Non-Canon